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Barren Eve, the 2nd of Duscar, in the year 841 PD.
In what has been said to be winter’s longest night, it is a day of mourning for those lost in war, and candles are to be lit to remember and honor the fallen.
Though there hasn’t been a need to light a candle in the Lionett-Nydoorin household in quite some time.
After all, the owners within had already done their share of grieving.
And it just so happens that there is a fierce snowstorm outside the house. The windows are shut, the curtains pulled shut, and the hearth was given extra logs to keep the fire from going out.
Beau can’t help but sigh, sitting in her new favorite chair with TJ in her lap. She didn’t intend on staying indoors tonight, or even staying home. But given that their humble cottage lies just on the outskirts of Rexxentrum proper, it certainly wasn’t the right kind of weather to go work late at the Cobalt Soul.
Besides, it’s just her and TJ inside today. Yasha and Clara – her mother had insisted that she can call her by her first name if she wanted, they’re both grown adults now – were out of town visiting Jester and Fjord and Veth in Nicodranas. Of course, at the time, Beau hadn’t thought of the possibility that she and TJ would be snowed in.
Ah, karma. Such a bitch, and so am I.
“Um, Beau?”
Beau looks down at her brother. “What’s up, TJ?”
TJ, her beautiful little man, looks up at her. Hard to believe that he’s already pushing eight years old. He stares at Beau with those eyes that sadly are not blue like hers but brown like… like his.
“I’m… I’ve been wanting to talk to you… about Dad.”
Even with the hearth burning bright, Beau can swear she can feel her blood freeze. Of all the things… she never thought that he would ever end up being mentioned again.
It’d been four years or so since Thoreau’s final sentencing for trying to murder Clara. All because she tried to leave with TJ. And such a crime required a punishment to match.
Beau can only be grateful that neither she nor Clara nor Yasha nor TJ were present to witness it; they had better things to do, like being a family together.
And yet… somehow she still can’t shake the last time she saw him, in that cell in Zadash a few days after she and Yasha welcomed Clara and TJ to their home. And the last words she ever spoke to him.
“I put you in here, through my words and the scars you left on my fucking soul. You’re beyond forgiveness, and not just from me. Enjoy your night in this cell. For what you’ve done and tried to do… you deserve the worst. And I know a nice big tree that would love to say hello… tomorrow.”
Dairon had told Beau the following morning that he’d been hanged for his crime. And that was it, it was all over, they could move on.
And yet…
“What about him?”
TJ fidgets and squirms in Beau’s lap, trying to find the right words. “I think I remember… I was back at home, and… I dunno how I remember it, but… I had overheard him and Mom talking. About… About you. It was when we last saw him. And…”
He goes silent, suddenly clamming up. Definitely not a good sign.
“TJ?” Beau says to him, intending to get him to calm down. “It’s okay. You can tell me, I won’t be mad. What did… What did Dad say?”
TJ shakes his head as he looks up at her again. He’s starting to cry. “It wasn’t Dad who said it. It was… It was Mom. She said… that you ‘broke free’ from him? What did she mean by that?”
His eyes are shining with tears now. “What did Dad do to you, Beau? You never talk about him anymore. What happened to him? I… Is he in a bad place or…”
“Whoa, whoa… Calm down, Teej,” Beau replies, trying to keep her own voice from cracking. He has a point. From the moment after she came home from seeing him, she never spoke of Thoreau. In fact, she and Clara agreed to never speak of it around TJ, at least until he was ready to hear it.
And yet, she doesn’t feel ready to speak of him at all. Especially not with TJ, and most definitely not now of all times, when it’s just them in the house.
Fuck, she had wanted to avoid this conversation indefinitely. But it seems that, like with a lot of things in her life, it was inevitable.
Better to rip the bandage off. Even though it hurts.
“About Dad… Um… Well, as I’m sure you know, I work at the library here in Rexxentrum, and at times back in Zadash. Uh, he… arranged for me to go there and… well, I suppose in some way I deserved it but…”
“Did he hurt you, Beau?”
TJ’s retort cuts through Beau’s spiraling thoughts. He just had to be as blunt as she can be. Definitely runs in the family.
“Um, kinda. Only once. I was being… I was not a good person when I was younger and… I got rather angry because he wouldn’t let me do what I wanted. So I… I broke free and tried to do my own thing, he didn’t like that, and he arranged for me to leave. He, uh…”
Beau shuts her mouth, not wanting to go any further. This was delving into some long-buried wounds that she didn’t want to reopen. Not with TJ. He’s an innocent boy, having had to live with an asshole father, though she can’t be sure if he was being treated unfairly by Thoreau.
“So why were you sad? When I first met you? Why was Mom sad whenever she talked about you?”
“Well… it was a hard time and… when I first got to the library, it wasn’t easy. It was tough to deal with, but I still managed. And…”
“But why would he hurt you? If you were leaving? Is something wrong?”
Beau sighs heavily. “TJ… please. I’m not really in the mood to talk about Dad. It brings up bad memories.”
TJ goes a little quiet. “I know. He yelled at me, and he hurt Mommy. He almost hurt me. But… I dunno what he did to you. Did he hurt you?”
Beau’s breath catches in her throat. Even now, she can still feel the sting of the slap of his hand across her face. Of all the things he’d done, that was the one thing that silenced her, made her unable to talk back. He’d only done it once, but that was more than enough for her to process what was going on, and the deal he’d made.
A shame that it had taken Beau three years to realize the truth. That he and Zeenoth had…
“It’s… It’s hard to explain. Yeah, he did hurt me. Like I said, it was only once. And…”
Fuck. Why is this hard to talk about? No, she knows why it’s hard to talk about. Because this is TJ she’s talking to. He was still just a tot back then.
She doesn’t want to lie to TJ, but she also owes him an explanation of some sort.
“I didn’t go willingly,” Beau finally explains, looking away from her brother. “I was… dragged out, I guess. Escorted, in some weird way. I dunno, I… I was a difficult person back then.”
Beau feels a small hand grab hers. She looks at TJ, and oh gods, the look on his face. It’s a look that should never appear on an eight-year-old’s face. A face that seems to actually understand what she’s being vague about.
So Beau tries to deflect. “Anyway, I was… taken to the Cobalt Soul. I learned a lot over there, it was a tough few lessons to take in, but hey, it all worked out, look how strong I am!”
She raises her arm and flexes a little. “You see? I’m—”
TJ looks away, shaking his head. “Why aren’t you telling me the truth, Beau?”
Beau is taken aback. “Teej, I am telling you—”
“I know the word. I heard Mom say it that night, while in the cart. That… you were… Kid… Kid… Kid…napped?”
TJ gasps with shock. “Beau, were you… kidnapped? By the Cobalt Soul?!”
Beau begins to shiver with realization. It’s true, she can’t even say that word right now. It just makes her feel ashamed, as if she deserved the shit she got.
“Um… I… I suppose…”
“I heard from my teacher the other day,” TJ begins to say. “That sometimes kids get kidnapped, and that at times, mommies and daddies could end up hurting their kids. But did the monks do that?”
“No,” Beau quickly responds. “No, the monks didn’t… They didn’t…”
Oh no, another word that she can never bring herself to admit out loud. The things that her father and Zeenoth had done, taking advantage of her and pushing her beyond her limits, even if it was for her sake…
No, what they did was a criminal act. The Cobalt Soul wouldn’t approve.
She swallows, hard. Her breath catches again. “They didn’t do… that. It was… It was… one. One monk who did. He… I was…”
TJ sits himself up in order to cling onto Beau, his small arms wrapping around her neck and shoulders. “What happened to you, Beau? Is it my fault? Am I a bad boy?”
“No no no! It’s not you, TJ!” Beau shakes her head. This is so fucking hard to talk about.
She hadn’t needed to discuss it with anyone in years. The sheer audacity of what she went through on that one fateful night.
And she remembers.
She remembers seeing Zeenoth there, amongst the monks.
She remembers seeing him speak with Thoreau.
She remembers seeing gold being put into Zeenoth’s hand, and him putting it into his pocket.
She remembers that it was Zeenoth that whacked her on the back of her head, knocking her out.
And she remembers that when she awoke next, she was chained by her ankle to a cart occupied by several monks in cloaks. She was also bound with her wrists tied behind her back and her mouth was gagged.
Zeenoth’s hired help. Dairon had mentioned later on that they were bribed just as he was, and that their task was to assist in “acquiring” her.
For three long years, because of that action, she had assumed that “money talks” was the norm, that she was just destined for cruelty.
The Mighty Nein had managed to help her turn her life around, including exposing their crimes and seeing them brought to justice.
But despite all that… she’s still that scared young woman deep down, she never truly moved on from what they had done, that she was… that she was…
“A…”
“Beau?” TJ asks her. Oh no, she can’t say it. Why can’t she say it?! It should be easier now. She should be able to say it like it fucking was.
“It was… It was him. It’s all Dad’s fault. His fault and someone else’s. They… I was…”
She can feel and hear herself begin to hyperventilate. TJ’s hold on her tightens. “What happened? Are… Are you scared? I thought nothing scares you, big sister.”
“No, I’m very scared,” she blurts out, mostly unintentionally. “I’m… I’m scared to even say it.”
TJ’s hold doesn’t waver. He’s acting like an anchor, holding her steady. Or trying to, at least.
“TJ… here’s a lesson for you. Don’t let yourself be taken advantage of as you grow up, okay?”
She can feel him nod. “Okay. But why?”
Beau exhales, still scared to confess. “Because… then you’re an easy… target… for…”
She’s almost there. She can feel it. But she’s just too damned ashamed to cross that line. Where was Cad when she needed him? Although she doesn’t think that even his best tea blends would help calm her down. Probably not even his own methods of calming emotions through magic.
“Ab… Ab…”
TJ doesn’t react physically, but she can definitely hear him sobbing. “Beau… I…”
Beau could handle so much that could threaten to completely crush her composure.
Hearing her brother sobbing for her specifically?
No. Not at all.
Her breath quivers as she dares herself to complete the word.
“An easy target for ab… for…”
She buries her face in TJ’s own shoulder. “ Abuse. That’s… That’s the word. An easy target for abuse.”
All at once, she feels sick. She feels so… disgusted at having admitted it at last. Yudala had said it plain as day, that she was… abused… by someone in power, that she was a victim of it.
TJ’s voice hiccups a little. “He did that to you? Dad?”
Beau tries to clear her throat. “Y…Yeah. He did. And another guy too.”
Neither of them say anything. The house is quiet for a few moments more, apart from the cracking fire.
And then the silence is broken by the sobs of a brother and sister holding each other tight, the full weight of what just happened finally setting in.
“Yeah, Dad did all that. And you’re lucky, Teej, because you escaped it. You and Mom, you broke free.”
Some broken sniffling before TJ speaks up again. “Like you?”
Beau nods, unable to stop crying. “Yeah. Like me. And now… neither of those bad men can hurt me anymore. Or you.”
“Nope. Nope. No way,” TJ keeps saying.
Slowly, the sobbing and crying turns to soft chuckling… and then quiet laughing, the misery that had flooded over them finally subsiding as levity began to fill its place.
“Yeah,” Beau says as she manages to catch her breath and break the hug between them. “They’re not going to hurt us anymore. Because I’m an awesome monk. Right?”
TJ nods, his eyes totally red from crying. She can tell that her eyes must be as well.
“Right!”
Brother and sister look at each other for a moment longer before they touch their foreheads together.
“It’s all okay now, Beau. I’m… I’m so proud of you.”
Beau finds herself at a loss for words for but a moment. “Thanks… Hearing that from you means a lot. Um… you wanna just stay here, go to sleep in our chair?”
His smile is warm. And a little contagious. “Okay.”
Beau sits up in her chair, hoping to make herself and TJ more comfortable. She reaches for the quilt hanging off the arm of the nearby loveseat and drapes it over the two of them, her brother curled up at her side.
TJ stands up a little to give her a kiss on the cheek. “When I grow up, I wanna be just like you, Beau.”
Beau can’t help but chuckle. Gods, she loves her little man so much. She can’t help but wonder if he’d make a great Cobalt Soul monk one day.
For all she knows, she might end up being the one that trains him. For now, though… it’s a nice dream to have.
“Maybe not exactly like me, Teej. But… yeah. That’d be nice.” She gives him a kiss on top of his head. “Alright, let’s get some shuteye.”
“Okay.” TJ nuzzles more of himself into the crook of her arm until he is snug and secure. “Love you, Beau.”
“I love you too… TJ.”
The fire continues to crackle as the Lionett children drift off to sleep. The night progresses, the two of them blissfully unaware of the raging snowstorm outside apart from the muted howling of the wind.
And not once do they dream of a father now dead to them, in every sense of the word.
And even when the front door is opened the next day by their returning family members, even when carried in a pair of big strong arms upstairs to a proper bed, tucked under the covers and given matching kisses on their foreheads, their sleep is undisturbed.